Hi Charlie

Hi Charlie, welcome back to the hobby! Your plan looks pretty good, one observation, unless a building goes in the space at the end of the two parallel yard tracks at the lower left side of the plan, you may want to extend them a little bit within the available space. You will want to add several feeder wires to your tracks, and clean them often for reliable operation. 

Depending on the brand name of your older locomotives, if they are high quality models, with some cleaning and lubrication with La Belle oil, they should run okay. If your models are some of the really old Tyco or Bachmann models that had only one truck powered by the motor built into the truck, you will be disappointed with their operation, as those had cheap plastic gears, and small motors that were of poor quality and had poor performance.

The old Athearn, AHM, Atlas, Bowser, Stewart, and others that have a centrally mounted motor with driveshafts to both trucks, will run just fine and pull great as long as the gears and axles are in good shape, clean and lubed. The old rolling stock can be brought up to modern standards by adding weight and details, metal wheels, or even newer improved trucks mounted by screws instead of the old plastic snap pin mounts. It will be best to add Kadee or similar couplers mounted to the body of the railroad car for reliable operation. Good luck on your project!

4 by 8

  I like the plan , it could be sceniced to represent an industrial area of Brooklyn with street running in spots and tight curves to get into the needed locations. The brass turnouts might be more work keeping them corrosion free so I'd think about new Atlas turnouts and nickle silver track. Same for the old engines, if they are Athearn or other higher quality then keep them but if cheaper toy type mechanisms toss them....DaveB

Classic

It is very similar to a lot of classic 4x8 layouts.  I like having the runaround on the branch.

Hi Charlie.......

It's always hard to find enough non railroad real estate on a 4x8 to support town buildings etc.  I am assuming that you will no doubt be running one train at a time.  If so..........then by using two turnouts and installing a cross over between the two tracks at the top of the page you could eliminate the third inside track on the left of your drawing.  This would not change the operational switching moves and would open up the space for other things you might want to see.

Welcome back Charlie, I will

Welcome back Charlie, I will second Michael's post above. It would make for an interesting out and back plan.

Thanks

In so far as the locos, yeah, they're all a mix of Tyco and other bottom shelf stuff. The 70 ton switchers are Bachmann Spectrums that I received as a gift a few years ago. But the old stuff has a lot of sentimental value to me and so I'll muddle through for the time being. If I really get into it, and as finances allow, upgrades are always a possibility.

As for the plan itself, I was looking to run two trains at a time - mainline and switching by blocking off the inner tracks from the main. My only question is in regard to the suggested modification (crossover). Would this not eliminate the runaround and force me to run the switcher(s) on the main at some point?

Thanks again for all the input - it always pays to have more than one set of eyes on something, and it's better to catch flaws early on in any project.